Playlist Part 2 – Something Borrowed, Something Blue(s)

Yesterday, I posted the first half of my Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed and Something Blue (s)Playlist. You can read about it here. The second half of my playlist starts with “Something Borrowed”. What was borrowed were the songs that comprise the latest release from.Tom Russell. Russell borrowed twelve songs from Ian and Sylvia Tyson for an album aptly titled Play One More: The Songs of Ian and Sylvia. According to his website…..read more

Yesterday’s Travels Down Memory Roads Lead to a New Type of Playlist…..

Yesterday I went to get a used auto part for my car. In doing so I had to travel on a road that I probably traveled at least once a week for 30 some odd years to get to many a job site.

As the miles rolled by pieces of my life did to . There went one of the many houses that I designed the septic system for. There’s the field where we were going to dig test pits one day.Until the County Health inspector threatened to take my backhoe operator back in the woods and beat the crap out if him over same question about rights to hunt on some property, There went another field where I did a large number of hand auger. borings and percolation tests and the list went on as the miles went by……read more

Book Reviews -Books 22 and 23 for 2017 – At Rope’s End and The Collapsing Empire

So my last two reads were just slightly different. The first At Rooe’s End was a typical mystery with a police detective and a forensic psychologist chasing a serial killer. The second The Collapsing Empire was a great science fiction book about the plight of the Interdependency. The one thing that they do have in common is that they are both the first book in a new series.read more

Status Report – Monday May 22, 2017

We have been lost in space and stranded on this planet for many years now… tired of that weasel Dr Smith and danger Wiill Robinson…. oops wrong status report.

Star Date 2017…..nope that doesn’t work either….

Donald Trump is still President! Arghhh! Danger USA!

My Morning Workout

Yesterday’a morning workout was a full 60 minute workout that burned 517 calories. Today’s workout was an abbreviated version of the same workout. It lasted 41 minutes, during which time I burned 309 calories . My average heart rate was 103 beats per minute and 69% of the time my heart rate was in the fat burn zone. All in all it was a good workout.read more

Phil Ochs and “Here’s to the State of Mississippi “

As I have watched the unfolding of the events surrounding the President over the last few weeks the similarities to Trump and Nixon get stronger every day. These similarities led me to the songs of Phil Ochs. Well at least to one song “Here’s to the State of Mississippi”

Way back in the mid-60s during the height of the Civil Rights struggle many people were aghast at the actions of the people of Mississippi. Folksinger Phil Ochs responded through song and wrote the classic “Here’s to the State of Mississippi”. In the song Ochs sang….read more

As we evolve over time, sometimes we need to look back at old favorites, remembering what we liked in the past. Old favorites can always help us move forward in positive directions towards things we know we’ll like.

Tracks from Isle of View start a looking back playlist

With that in mind I caught a glimpse this morning of Jimmie Spheeris’ debut recording Isle of View amongst some old vinyl albums that are lying against one of my bookshelves. So I was soon off to Spotify to give the album a listen for the first time in a long time. i’m listening to track four “The Seeda of Spring” now. It has always been a favorite. Next up is “l am the Mercury” probably the best known track from the album and another favorite.read more

About the Amelioration Project…..

Amelioration means improvement. So The Amelioration Project is my improvement project. It’s kinda like Gretchen Rubin‘s The Happiness Project only slightly different. Instead if doing things to find happiness I’m just looking for ways to improve my life and hope like hell that those improvements make me happier. Because it would be pretty bad to make improvements and end up less happy than before.read more

Ok so I really must apologize for not posting here for a fairly long time. But just because I haven’t posted doesn’t mean that I haven’t been reading or listening. So in the next few posts I will try to catch up and then maybe get back on a more regular schedule for posting.

My April – May Reads

in my last post about reading I presented the four books that I planned to read in the remaining days of April and on into May. The four books were: Exit West by Moshin Hamid, The Lives of Taoby Wesley Chu, The Nowhere Man from Gregg Hurwitz and The Fifth Elementby Jorgon Brekkeread more

The Morning Workout Evolution Begins!

One thing that has evolved over the last two weeks is my morning workout. When I decided to get in shape back in January my morning routine consisted of six minutes of Kundalini yoga, followed by six minutes of light weights and six minutes of resistance bands.

Evolution Number One – Dance

Then I added some movement. A few minutes of dance cardio. My weight started to drop and I started to loose inches. Soon my routine consisted of 12-14 minutes of dance cardio, followed by six minutes of light weights and kettle bell, six minutes of two types of resistance bands and four minutes using resistance boxing bands. The entire workout took about thirty minutes. I was.burning close to three hundred calories doing this routine.read more

Last week I decided to create a playlist for one of my runs using music from four of my favorite acoustic guitarists. Two are solo Nuevo Flamenco guitarists and two are duos. The solo artists are Jesse Cook and Ottmar Liebert and the duos are Rodrigo y Gabriela and Terra Guitarra.

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The albums that I used for the playlist are two favorite albums Gravityfrom Jesse Cook which is one of my favorite acoustic guitar albums of all time and from Rodrigo y Gabriella I chose their album Live in Japan. The songs I picked from Gravity are: “Mario Takes a Walk”, “Closer to Madness” and “Azul”. “Mario Takes a Walk” and “Closer to Madness” are my two favorite songs from Jesse Cook. I don’t think that many songs create a feeling of a dark Arabian night as well as this song! From Live in Japan I picked “Ixtapa”, “Diablo Rojo” and “Tamacun”read more